Chronic
by polar-or-die
Summary: Danny Fenton struggles with chronic fatigue. A very short blurb I wrote on my phone and didn't proofread. Enjoy


Danny rolled over in bed, eyes cemented shut, muscles rubbery and numb. The sun wasn't really rising yet, but he had to get his morning patrol done. Danny tensed and released the muscles in his arms and legs. He sighed. It was getting harder to wake up again. He fumbled for his phone, and turned off the alarm, moving to a social media app to get his brain ticking as he peeked through the slits of his eyes. Propping himself on one elbow, he worked himself up for the exhausting ordeal of getting out of bed. That was always the hardest part these days.

He knew he was half dead, and he knew that would take a toll on him, but he felt like his soul was losing all its energy. Psychiatrists and doctors labeled it as possible depression, or maybe chronic fatigue, or early onset fibromyalgia or even migraines without headaches. "You know," said one doctor, "sometimes arthritis presents itself like chronic fatigue... we could put you on allergy meds? That sometimes helps. Who knows." There was a whole list of things his "symptoms" could file under, and so many studies linking them all together in different ways. Danny wasn't really interested with labels, or really wanting to risk getting his powers found out, so he decided to let it go and just call whatever this was "chronic fatigue." He really _was_ tired all the time, and low on energy when it came to anything outside of Phantom stuff, and the name "chronic fatigue" sounded just the right amount of physically medical (the average "healthy" layman doesn't grasp mental illness very well) while not being too alarming. It was a good middle ground.

They say that there's no solid cure for it, because it's hard to quantify in the first place. Every person's case is unique, they'd told him. And he knew _his_ case was very, very unique. They said physical activity would help. And it did for a while, I mean, he fights ghosts in his free time! It's great exercise! But after some time, he knew, you start to work harder and harder to pretend it isn't there, and it only makes it worse. It only makes you so tired you can feel your bones, the kind of exhausted where you can lie in bed, breathing in slow motion like the air is viscous, waiting to get your energy back. But it never comes.

Danny flicked the light on as he got in the shower. There's different kinds of tired, you know. You've got your physical exhaustion, where you've worked your body down to where it knows it's time for a rest. Your muscles don't let you use them as much, and you're drawn to your bed naturally. That kind is usually the most comforting, because you know it's a day of work well done. You did it right, you got exercise, everything is perfect. Then there's the mental kind of tired where you've used your brain a lot. This kind of tired happens when you study for seven hours straight, or read too much fanfiction at once. This one is also normal, though less comforting, because you start to feel like your brain's going on the fritz, it's not working right. Sometimes you get a headache. But it's a normal kind of tired. Then there's a third kind Danny didn't know existed until after the accident - one that's always there, lurking, pulling you into every chair you pass by like a magnet, filling your head with fuzz. It knocks you out for 16 hours at a time and keeps you up for 35 more. The kind of tired that's there for no reason, that messes with you when you're not counting on it, the kind that makes you miss school because you can't walk right or cancel plans because you're worried that you'll just sit down in a chair somewhere, fall asleep, and miss all the fun, because it's just a little too nice outside. The kind of tired that scrambles the days, keeps you from your homework, and convinces you that putting things off until later is a good thing because that means you don't have to deal with it right now. It says that beds are better than friends, staying inside is safer, and what's the real trouble in possibly dropping out of high school anyway?

Danny turned off the shower water, drying off with intangibility, and went to get dressed. A chill passed down his spine. It was this third kind of tired that scared him the most. It pulled on him more than he would ever like to admit, and it made him grumpy. He knew he had to do something about it to keep from getting dragged down, to stop himself from one day lying down in bed and never getting up again. But it isn't easy.

Danny searched his room for a thermos to take out with him, thinking about how people handle you when you're so low energy. After a while, some friends ask you to stop bringing it up, to stop using it as an excuse. They argue with you that you can't have it this hard, you aren't even doing anything. You don't deserve sympathy, some people might even say, because the struggle doesn't seem real. It's what they call an "invisible illness," and often people mistake "invisible" for "fictional." They think you're destroying your life on purpose most of the time. Like I'm that excited to be so swamped in overdue homework that I might not pass this year, scoffed Danny to himself.

Danny ate some cereal for breakfast, pondering why he felt so stuck. It's the lack of support, he realized. Sometimes it felt like no one took him seriously, because most of the people in his life had decided they were done dealing with it. Like his parents. He knew they meant well, that they probably thought that supporting only positive activities was a good way to lift him up, but... it felt like they were just glossing over something that consumed most of his life because it wasn't convenient for them to deal with. As if he weren't worth the trouble.

He realized that he hadn't really talked that much about it with Sam and Tucker. He'd tried mentioning it to not so close friends in class for some practice but they never took it that well, and that combined with his family's take on how it should just disappear now that they named the problem... it worried him that Sam and Tucker might try to make him "just get over it," too. But maybe he should try anyway. They were his closest friends, and they stuck with him through becoming _half ghost,_ and kept his secrets locked away in places sometimes he couldn't even remember. Maybe he was being too harsh without even giving them a chance.

Dressed and ready, Danny headed out the door to meet up at Sam's to start the morning patrol. When he got there, he took a deep breath. Sam answered the door, already on a roll to get some ghosts, but he stopped her. "Listen," Danny said. "Sam... Tucker... I think we should talk. I think we all need to have a talk." When they asked about what, when the concern shone in their eyes, when Tucker cracked a joke to lessen the stress, he knew they'd be alright. Maybe one day, it would get easier.


End file.
